Ning and some notes

Yesterday and today it's been cold. Last night I brought indoors the brugmansia (small buds starting to form), cannas (small sprouts starting to appear), zantedeschias (ditto) and other tender overwintered plants that I previously had on the deck. They'll stay inside until tomorrow. Last night's low here was 34.

On a whim I bought a package of seed potatoes for "gourmet white" at Fred Meyer. The clerk commented that for the price I could have bought 2# of potatoes. True, so I wont say what I paid. I planted them today in the onion bed.

Thursday I turned under the soil in the tomato beds. I scattered about 1# of crushed eggshells and raked those in as well.

I continue to collect coffee grounds at work. Currently I'm adding them to a batch of chicken poop compost, to keep the worms happy.

I pulled another big bucket of dandelions and other weeds and generously gave them to the chickens. Since the chickens have been here, I like pulling dandelions and am starting to feel disappointed that their #s are diminishing. If they all disappear, we may have to find them in other yards!

I fertilized the smaller lilacs, Quincy Chinese Chives, ginkgos, and a few other plants around the yard with fish emulsion. Supposedly, in the cool weather, this does not release much nitrogen. The lilacs were lacluster last year, so maybe this will encourage them to grow larger this spring and summer.